Management must make the measurement of service quality and feedback from the customer a basic part of everyone's work experience. This information must be available and understood by everyone, no matter what their level. The entire organization must become obsessed with what the customer wants.

Be very clear about specifying the behavior that employees are expected to deliver, both with external customers and their coworkers.

Explainwhy giving excellent customer service is important -- not only for the company, but for the world. What does your company do that makes life easier for everyone? What does your product or service add? Be sure to include this in the reasons for achieving customer service excellence.

Create ways to communicate excellent examples of customer service both within and outside the company. Institute celebrations, recognition ceremonies, logos, and symbols of the customer service culture and its values. This is where you want the mugs, buttons, and banners. Have a customer service bulletin board to feature service incidents that were special. Seize every opportunity to publicize the times when employees do it right.

Indoctrinate and train everyone in the culture as soon as they are hired. Disney is famous for this. It puts all newcomers through a "traditions" course that details the company history with customer relations and how it is the backbone of Disney. Your orientation program is a key part of the ultimate success of your customer service efforts. Make sure that it contains more than an explanation of benefits and a tour of the facilities. It can be an important element in planting the customer service culture of the company so it can flourish and grow.

Encourage a sense of responsibility for group performance. Help employees see how their performance affects others. Emphasize the importance of "internal customer service." Help everyone to see that if you don't serve each other well, you can never hope to serve your ultimate customer.

Establish policies that are "customer friendly" and that show concern for your customers. Eliminate all routine and rigid policies and guidelines. Knock yourself out to be a company that is easy to do business with. Never let your customer service representatives say, "Those are the rules I have to follow; there's nothing I can do about it." There is always a way to satisfy the customer. You must give your employees the power to do so.

Remove any employees who do not show the behavior necessary to please customers. Too many companies allow frontline service representatives to remain on the job when they are not suited to a customer service position. If employees don't want to serve the customer in the best way possible, document their behaviors and use this information to help them change or to move them to areas away from customer interaction.